Updated 3:05 pm, Thursday, August 15, 2013

HARTFORD -- McKayla Maroney, aspiring actress, world-class athlete, made up her mind before she scrunched up her mouth.

"I didn't know if I wanted to go to the next Olympics or get into acting," Maroney says. "The second I fell on my butt on vault, I was like, `Well, next Olympics it is.' Acting can wait."

It's here in Hartford where Maroney, perhaps the most famous member of the "Fierce Five," continues her quest to rebound from last summer's ill-timed fall, a miscue that cost her gold in the vault. It's here at the P&G national championships Thursday through Sunday that she takes the next step toward 2016.

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And here's the thing about 2016: By then, Maroney will be 20 years old. The sport is brutal on the body, and most female gymnasts peak in their teens. The turnover between Olympics is astonishing. You hardly ever see the same name twice on the U.S. squad.

Same goes for top-notch vaulters. In fact, the last female vaulter to earn medals in consecutive Olympics was Russia's Ludmilla Tourischeva. That was in 1972 and 1976. Only two -- Czechoslovakia's Vera Cáslavská (1968) and Romania's Sandra Izbasa (2012) -- have captured gold while in their 20s.

But here's the thing about McKayla Maroney: She knows the history, knows a repeat trip -- a successful one, at that -- is an incredible challenge. She knows that you have to "give up your life for it," and insists she's willing to do that. But she also knows no limits.

"If I can make the first Olympic team, then why not be able to make the next one?" she asks innocently.

Ready for her second competition since London, Maroney spends Wednesday prepping for the floor and vault, the two events she'll perform this weekend at the XL Center. She marks her starting point on the runway -- scribbling a little "T" in chalk -- takes one step back and then accelerates. Her speed is noticeable, but it isn't all that distinguishable from the other competitors. It's her burst off the springboard that amazes.

"It's something that's a God-given talent more than something that I technically figured out," says Maroney, who has several family members from the Milford area.

On one practice jump, Maroney twists in the air, reaching heights most Olympians -- let alone most people -- couldn't touch in their dreams. She stumbles a bit once her feet hit, taking a moment to fully gain her balance.

"We know that she's perfect on the vault," Marinova says, "and we want her to be the best."

Clearly, she does, too. You can see it on her face when she trains. You saw it, of course, last summer when she was second-best, the silver medal prompting that now-famous scowl. The pass code on her cellphone is 2016. No doubt, McKayla Maroney is a 17-year-old on a mission.

But, as she'll remind you, she's also a 17-year-old. She rambles a-thousand-words-a-minute during interviews. She uses the word "like" all the time ... like every few sentences. Seriously. When she speaks to reporters, it sounds like she's on a three-way call with her high school friends.

"My brother drives me crazy," Maroney says. "I could've slept until 10 this morning, but he came (to the hotel room) at 6:30 looking for his phone charger and I was gonna kill him. He was knocking on the door, and I was like, `I hate you.'"

She keeps going: "He's funny. He's annoying, though."

She can't live without Twitter or Vine or Keek. She couldn't upload an Instagram photo the other day and it frustrated the hell out of her. She is, in that sense, like any teenage girl.

And then she'll say stuff like this:

"The President tweeted at me like six days ago. You know TBT -- it's like Throwback Thursday? He threw back the `not impressed' face."

Maroney has tweeted back-and-forth with Lady Gaga, she's met Barack Obama, she's judged the 2013 Miss America pageant. She's even made her acting debut, appearing on three episodes of the TV show "Hart of Dixie," which only confirmed her desire to one day pursue a career in the field.

When filming "Hart of Dixie," the camera crew only captured Maroney's upper-body because her left leg, for the first time ever, was in a cast. Injuries, so common in the sport, had eluded Maroney until last year. Since the Olympics, she's had two surgeries -- one to fix a fractured left tibia and one to repair a broken right big toe. She also had a minor hip injury, according to Marinova.

Six months away from the sport -- the longest break of her career -- had Maroney wondering, "Am I ever going to be able to do gymnastics again?" Now healthy, the question becomes: Three years from now, will she still be the best vaulter in the world? And if she's not, will she be good enough at everything else to merit a spot on the Olympic squad?

The funny thing about these U.S. championships is that all eyes are on Maroney and Kyla Ross, the senior division headliners. Yet, it's the junior division that often produces the future Olympians. In 2010, the last time the event came to Hartford, Maroney, Ross, Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber all competed as juniors.

So this time, Maroney's looking around, suddenly a veteran.

"Nobody thought I was ever going to be on the (2012) Olympic Team because there were the seniors that went to the Olympics and were training," Maroney says, "but then people start disappearing. And it's weird because it's like -- I don't want to disappear. I don't want that to be me."

That's what happens with gymnasts. They come and go. Anyone who manages to stay for more than one cycle, well, there should be a new expression for them: like really, really impressed.